The present invention relates to an automated method and apparatus for sequencing and/or inspecting playing cards. More particularly, the present invention relates to an automated method and apparatus which will sequence a standard deck of playing cards and alternatively check the playing cards for possible detects. In addition to performing a computerized check for playing cards with possible defects, the present invention includes an operator interface that will display a magnified version of a potentially defective area of a card on a monitor for view by an operator, and query the operator as to whether to accept or reject the card in order to allow for further inspection.
The method and apparatus of the present invention for sequencing a used deck of playing cards outputs complete decks of playing cards, with all cards facing the same way in proper sequence. An optional method and apparatus of the present invention supplies the operator of the method and apparatus with an overall wear rating for each deck of playing cards.
Casinos offer various card games including, but not limited to, poker, baccarat and blackjack. Poker is played using one deck of playing cards, while blackjack and baccarat are typically played using multiple decks of playing cards that are shuffled together. In fact, in casinos, blackjack is often played using four decks of playing cards and baccarat is often played using eight decks of playing cards.
All of the decks of playing cards used, however, comprise standard fifty-two card decks, with each deck having four suits, and each suit having thirteen cards. New decks of playing cards arrive in standard sequence by suit and by rank within each suit. Each properly ordered suit is arranged within a new deck of playing cards in the following sequence: diamonds, clubs, hearts and spades. In addition, each suit contains thirteen cards in proper order starting with the king and descending in order down to the ace. Accordingly, in a brand new deck of properly ordered playing cards, the king of diamonds is always the top card in the deck and the ace of spades is always the bottom card in the deck. New decks of playing cards are typically provided in sets. Each set contains two properly sequenced decks of playing cards existing side by side, with each of the two decks having a different color back.
When brand new decks of playing cards are first received by a casino, each deck of cards must be certified as being good and acceptable for play before the deck can be used. In order to certify that deck of playing cards is good and acceptable for play, the casino must ascertain that: (1) there is one and only one of each type (i.e. by suit and rank) of playing card in the deck of playing cards, (2) all of the backs of the playing cards contained in the deck are of the same color, (3) there are no defective playing cards (i.e. torn or cracked cards, cards with dimples or fingernail marks, cards with missing print or cards with spots), and (4) there are no boxed cards (cards facing backwards, etc.) contained in the deck of playing cards.
When a deck of playing cards is put into play at a casino, the dealer spreads the deck out on the table in front of the players to verify, for the house and the players, that the entire deck of playing cards is there and that the deck is a good deck of cards that is acceptable for play. The deck must be in proper sequence when it is spread out for inspection so that it can be easily checked for play. If the deck is not in proper sequence, the decks are not used and a new set up, i.e. a new set of two decks of playing cards is brought into play.
Casinos use expensive, long lasting decks of playing cards, and continually reuse their decks of playing cards rather than throwing the cards away after their first use. xe2x80x9cNewxe2x80x9d (i.e., for the most part, recycled) decks of playing cards are brought into a game fairly often since, for example, in poker any player at a table may ask for a new set up, i.e. a new set of two decks, to be brought in to replace the two existing decks at the table almost as often as he/she wants. In addition, a new set up comprising two new decks of playing cards is brought into a card game any time a bad playing card is found during the course of the game.
Casinos accumulate multiple decks of unsorted playing cards which have to be checked for defects and marks and then put back into their proper sequence, i.e., proper suit and rank order, before they can be reused. Before a used deck of playing cards can be reused, it must be checked for all of the conditions described above with respect to new decks of playing cards, as well as being checked for any accidental or intentional marks which may have inadvertently or deliberately been placed on the backs of the playing cards.
When activity is slow in a casino, casino employees, namely the dealers or floor persons, put the playing cards back into their proper sequence while looking the cards over for defects or aberrations. Problems arise, however, when the casinos become busy in that casino employees have less spare time to sequence and inspect the decks of used playing cards.
During these busy times, casinos typically will require dealers coming off their table rotations, who should be going on their breaks, to instead spend time sequencing the used decks of playing cards. Obviously, the dealers are not functioning at peak performance during these times when they should be taking their breaks but are instead sequencing playing cards. As a result, the employees attempt to sequence the used playing cards as quickly as possible, thereby increasing chances for mis-ordering cards and failing to identify cards having defects or aberrations.
Further, when casinos are very busy and employees do not have time to sequence the used decks of playing cards, the casinos run out of playing card set ups, i.e. sets of decks of properly sequenced playing cards. Accordingly, when a player asks for a new deck of cards to be brought into the game, dealers are instead instructed to simply reshuffle the deck of cards that is already in play. The failure to introduce a new deck of playing cards is not well accepted by the players.
In addition, casinos typically have difficulty in determining when a used deck of playing cards is too old and worn for further use. In fact, casinos typically do not have any objective measure for determining when a used deck of playing cards should be retired and no longer used.
Various methods and apparatus for optically identifying playing cards exist in the prior art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,669,816 issued to Garczynski et al, discloses a blackjack scanner apparatus and method which includes a scanner for scanning at least a portion of a dealer""s first standard playing card, memory for storing indicia representative of cards contained in a standard deck of playing cards, means for comparing and determining the identity of the first playing card based on comparison with indicia representing each of the playing cards contained in the standard deck of cards, means for the dealer to input the identity of the dealer""s second playing card, means for reporting when the first and second playing cards comprise blackjack, and a dealer shoe which includes the reporting means. This method and apparatus utilizes optical lenses to project the character of a playing card onto an array chip and microprocessor and memory chips to compare the result of the projected playing card with a set of references which relate to each of the individual cards contained within a deck of playing cards. The object of the invention is to announce when a dealer has blackjack without even the dealer knowing the dealer""s down card.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,722,893 to Hill et al. describes a shuffled card dispensing shoe with an optical sensor which scans indicia on the playing cards as the cards move along and out of the shoe and an automated card tracking system. The system includes (1) an elongated housing having a chute for manually removing cards one-by-one from the deck, (2) means for scanning indicia on each of the cards as they are moved one-by-one out of the housing, such as an infrared laser scanner for reading a bar code imprinted on the cards, an opto-sensor capable of scanning the card image to be used with a neural network that can recognize the images printed on the face of the cards, an infrared laser scanner with an optical character recognition reader, or a charged coupling device laser capable of capturing and recognizing the images printed on the-face of each card, and (3) means for coupling the scanner to a host computer for processing the signal to determine trends in the order of cards dispensed from the shoe relative to a card count system. The scanner includes a feed forward neural network which is trained using error-back propagation to recognize card rank within a deck of playing cards. The primary object of this invention is to track playing cards dispensed from the shoe in order to determine how many good cards versus bad cards have been dispensed from the shoe thereby allowing the identification of times when odds shift in favor of a card counting player.
Another method and apparatus for scanning and dispensing playing cards is disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,431,399 issued to Kelley. The Kelley patent reference discloses a method and apparatus for automatically dealing playing cards in a predetermined pattern wherein the apparatus includes an enclosure for holding a deck of cards where the base of the enclosure has one or more slots, means for scanning or reading the indicia or code on a playing card, a processor for processing the indicia or code and matching that information against a predetermined pattern and activating a card displacement means, and a card displacement means for removing a single card from the bottom of the deck through one of the slots in the base of the enclosure. The main object of this invention is to provide for the automatic distribution of playing cards in a random or predetermined order.
A general card sorting method and apparatus for all types of cards is disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,921,109 issued to Hasuo et al. The card sorting apparatus includes at least two card stackers, a sensor for reading indicia on the cards, a card rack for holding multiple cards, and a memory for storing information relating to the cards held by the card rack where the card rack is connected to at least one of the card stackers. During use, a predetermined number of cards is transferred to a card rack and are compared with another group of cards transferred to the card rack. Cards satisfying the comparison are fed into a card stacker and cards are sorted in advance between the card rack and card stacker. This general card sorting method and apparatus utilizes a card reader to read characters and symbols on the cards in order to select cards meeting specific criteria.
Many of the systems described above perform card identification in order to perform a mathematical calculation such as the existence of a blackjack hand (hand totaling 21) or whether the odds for a player counting cards has turned in that player""s favor. However, none of the above card scanning and dispensing methods and apparatus perform automatic sequencing of a randomly arranged deck of cards.
The Stevens U.S. Pat. No. 5,558,232 is not directed to playing cards; but it does disclose an apparatus for sorting documents. In the apparatus of the Stevens patent, documents are supplied through an optical scanner which scans particular areas of interest in the documents and displays those areas on a cathode ray tube display. An operator viewing the display then manually activates a switch to send the selected document to a particular output bin. The number of output bins or options is determined by the various characteristics which require an operator decision. This system is a document sorter. It does not place the documents in any particular order. They are stacked in the output bins on top of one another in sequence in the order in which they are supplied through the scanner system.
The Peyton U.S. Pat. No. 4,415,566 is directed to a sophisticated sorting mechanism for sorting bottles, such as soft drink bottles, supplied to it, onto one of a limited number of pre-assigned outlet conveyors for each different bottle type supplied to the system. In order to determine the bottle type, the indicia or decoration printed on the bottle is optically scanned and compared with stored images corresponding to the different bottle types which are handled by the system. When a comparison verification is made, a delivery device deposits the bottle onto a conveyor for that bottle type. Consequently, the system sorts the bottles supplied to its input onto several different output conveyors. There is no rearranging of the order of the bottles into a sequence, however; they are simply deposited onto the conveyors in the same order in which they are supplied to the system. The device of the Peyton patent does disclose the utilization of stored memory indicia having pre-established characteristics for comparison with optically scanned images as the bottles pass through the system, in order to determine in which of the different output conveyors (or bins) the bottles are to be deposited.
In addition, with respect to the playing card identification methods and apparatus previously described, none of those prior art references include a method and apparatus wherein individual playing cards may be ordered in sequence and, optionally, evaluated for possible defects which would disqualify their use for a fair game involving playing cards, especially with respect to games of chance such as those played in casinos. In addition, in order to ensure a fair game in games of chance using playing cards, it is important to retire those decks of playing cards which have undergone an extensive amount of wear.
Accordingly, an efficient and effective method and apparatus for sequencing and, optionally, inspecting playing cards is needed which has the ability to output an acceptable deck of playing cards for use in games of chance, wherein all of the playing cards are facing the same way, in proper sequence, i.e., in proper suit and rank order.
It is a principal object of this invention to provide an automated method and apparatus for the efficient and effective sequencing of playing cards.
It is another object of this invention to provide an automated and interactive method and apparatus for detecting defects in playing cards and ejecting those cards in order to eliminate their use in a deck of playing cards which would produce inaccurate or unfair results in a game of chance.
It is still another object of this invention to provide an automated method and apparatus for sequencing a deck of playing cards such that the deck of playing cards is sorted and arranged by proper suit and rank order.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide an automated and interactive method and apparatus for inspecting playing cards which provides for operator interface in determining the acceptance or rejection of a given individual playing card.
Still another object of this invention is to provide an automated method and apparatus for sequencing playing cards which produces an overall wear rating for each deck of playing cards.
Yet another object of this invention is to provide an automated method and apparatus, which is operator interactive, for inspecting a standard deck of playing cards.
It is another object of this invention to provide an automated method and apparatus for sequencing playing cards having an increased efficiency due to the limited number of movements required by both the playing cards themselves and the apparatus in order to achieve sequencing of the playing cards with as little wear on the cards as possible.
It is still another object of this invention to provide an automated method and apparatus for sequencing and inspecting playing cards having increased efficiency and cost effectiveness due to the reduced number of physical and movable parts required for the method and apparatus.
It is also an object of this invention to provide an automated method and apparatus for inspecting playing cards which exhibits an increase in the accuracy of detecting playing cards having unacceptable defects by using pattern recognition technology to look for defects while also allowing for subjective input by providing an operator interface.
In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention, an automated apparatus is provided for sequencing a deck of playing cards. The sequencing apparatus includes an input hopper for holding a deck of playing cards. This hopper is designed to permit removal of the playing cards from it one at a time; and cards are fed one at a time to an imaging device, which images at least one side of a playing card. A control processor is responsive to an output signal from the imaging device for determining the position each card supplied past the imaging device should occupy in a properly sequenced deck of cards. The position information from the control processor is used to locate the cards in selected positions in a temporary storage device. Mechanism then is provided for removing the cards from the temporary storage device, one at a time, in the order of a properly sequenced deck of cards thereby delivering a properly sequenced deck of cards to a desired location.
The present invention also includes a method for sequencing a deck of playing cards comprising the steps of inputting at least one deck of playing cards into a housing; feeding a playing card from the deck of playing cards into an imaging means; comparing the image of the playing card with a plurality of stored images of playing cards included in the deck of playing cards to determine the identity the position the playing card occupies in a properly sequenced deck of cards; and removing the playing cards, one at a time, to form a properly sequenced deck of cards.
An alternative method of the present invention also utilizes the comparison of stored, known and acceptable images of playing cards to determine whether a card has any problem areas or defects.